


The Ashes of War

by BellaBabe



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6295879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellaBabe/pseuds/BellaBabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve looks to him in discussions with the Commandos, a captain in search of his second. But Bucky doesn’t know how to be that anymore. He doesn’t know how to stand by Steve, the cocky voice of reason, cuffing Steve when he says something particularly idiotic. </p><p>Or Bucky doesn't know how to reconcile post-serum Steve with the knobby kneed Brooklyn boy he left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ashes of War

There’s something terrifying about the weight of a rifle in the hands of someone who wants to wield it. It is intoxicating, the power, the control one has over someone else’s life, armed on a battlefield. Even back home with the crunch of Brooklyn streets under Bucky’s feet and a pretty girl tucked into the crook of his arm he has never felt so sure of himself as he does with the satisfying sound of a soldier hitting the ground ringing in his ears. Bucky muses about his death, its inescapability and obscurity, as he puts holes in other men. He imagines what his father would tell him about war if he were still alive. What Steve would say if he saw him covered in the blood of a kid no older than Mrs. Fraser’s son.

After death had visited both their homes and stolen their parents from them, leaving them alone and afraid and navigating the dangers of Brooklyn with only each other at their backs, they had gotten a place together. A one bedroom with a stove that would never light and a draft that would leave Steve shaking in the middle of the night. It was small and filthy but completely theirs. Two winters before the war broke out, New York was struck with an unbearably cold winter. Bucky spent every night of that winter curled around Steve’s smaller frame, sharing body heat and murmuring desperate prayers littered with Steve’s name. The instinct to protect Steve Rogers is something more familiar to Bucky Barnes than even the weight of a rifle.

......

There had been long summer afternoons where hauling junk at the shipyards had become dangerous and impossible in the suffocating heat. Bucky used to traipse home in the dwindling sunlight, soaked and weary and aching for his mother’s sweet tea. Steve used these days to pick up odd jobs from elderly neighbours in exchange for scraps. The neighbours loved Steve, all charm and innocent eyes as if the boy didn't have a filthier mouth on him than any of the men down at the docks. Steve used to beg Bucky to let him draw him in the fading light and Bucky always refused modestly as if he wasn’t itching for Steve’s hungry gaze on him. Bucky knows that Steve looked at him critically, with an artist’s eye, but for those brief snatches of time on the fire escape Bucky liked to pretend otherwise.

......

Bucky doesn't know how it happened exactly. They had been fighting. Bucky came home, letter in hand, to give Steve the news of his departure in five days time. Steve had been flushed with the force of his anger, lip jutted out and brow furrowed.

“You’re fucking leaving.”

Steve had him crowded against the counter and Bucky had forgotten what they were fighting about in favour of staring at Steve lips. Steve glared defiantly up at him, and Bucky couldn’t restrain himself, knowing that he might never get to see Steve, beautiful in his defiance, ever again. He crashed their lips together, it was rough and Bucky had to bend down to reach Steve’s lips but it was also amazing and terrifying and Bucky had never wanted anything more in his life. Steve responded with surprising intensity, responsive and pliant against Bucky’s insistent onslaught. He placed Steve on the counter and untucked his shirt so he could feel Steve’s skin under his hands. Steve whimpered into his mouth and Bucky had never heard a sweeter sound.

Their breaths rasped together in the quiet confines of their room. It was messy and their chins bumped together. Bucky biting Steve’s lip caused him to whimper and cant his hips upwards into Bucky’s hand. They were desperate for proximity but terrified by it at the same time. Steve’s mouth strayed to Bucky’s jawline as he desperately rubbed their cocks together, seeking friction. Bucky’s breath was hot against Steve’s ear, not believing how good this was. How good they were together. Afterwards, Steve tucked himself under Bucky’s arm and, thinking Bucky asleep, begged him not to leave.

......

 Bucky does leave, exchanging the comfort of Steve’s arms for the unforgiving cold and chance to serve his country. And isn't that grand. Bucky’s never been much of a patriot and the brutality of war does nothing to change his opinion.

 ......

The other men are quiet, sombre in the aftermath of a day in the trenches and it's only when the sun peaks over the horizon and Bucky unfolds himself from another restless night, someone dropping a creased letter in his lap, that guilt rears it’s ugly head. Reminding Bucky of the sweet smell of his mother’s perfume, or Becca’s insistent chatter and even more worryingly the slow curve of Steve’s bottom lip and the soft sounds of his laugh. Bucky nods a thanks to the young soldier and carefully opens the letter with Steve’s familiar scrawl on the envelope. Steve’s letter is brief but heartfelt with a smattering of neighbourhood anecdotes and a reassurance that he’s keeping himself healthy. Bucky feels relief unbidden wash over him, Steve is still safe, tucked away in their rat-infested Brooklyn apartment while Bucky festers alone in the mud surrounded by dead men.

 ......

Bucky no longer feels reassured by the weight of his rifle, disgust at the ease with which he aims and takes fire starts creeping in. A slow burn of anger at the people who put him here, who forced him to take the lives of foreign soldiers on enemy territory and continue to pull the strings from behind bullet proof glass. He opens letters with grubby shaking hands and smokes to calm his frayed nerves with no success. He doesn’t pay attention to the faces of the other men and avoids learning their names, but sometime he slips up. Shares a cigarette with a young kid name Joseph from New Jersey and watches him bleed out in the mud three days later.

 ......

One night when Bucky is three sheets to the wind and babbling nonsense about some girl back home to contribute to the lewd stories of the other men he slips up and suddenly he’s describing blond hair, bony fingers and a delicately arched nose. He shuts his mouth with an audible click and rubs the back of his neck as he flushes from more than just the alcohol. A large barrel chested man with a ridiculously well kept moustache leans over and claps him on the back in sympathy.

“It’s hard leaving the ones you love.” Bucky is too far gone to hide his miserable expression.

 ......

His face is pressed up against the damp bars of some Nazi cell with a some bastard frisking him for weapons but lingering too long, forcing Bucky to choke down the taste of bile. Bucky spits on him and gets a split lip for his trouble. He slumps down bruised and battered and not for the first time in his life he looks up and prays to a God he doesn’t thinks exists.

 ......

“Bucky?” Bucky blinks against the darkness and tries to make out the shape of the man above him. He must be hallucinating.

“Stevie?” But the man is too big to be Steve. The man’s face swims into view and though the jaw is larger, more sculpted, and the cheekbones more fitted to that of a Greek god than a porcelain doll it’s unmistakably Steve.

“I thought you were smaller.” Steve lets out a pained gasp of relief and unstraps Bucky from the table.

 ......

They tell Bucky he can go home with an honourable discharge. But he looks at Steve, the strong set of his shoulders and the hard lines of his mouth and knows that’s not an option. Steve is different. People’s eyes follow him across the base and Steve walks with a proud tilt to his chin, eyes searching, wary but confident in his actions. Bucky’s proud, but he’s also terrified. His nightmares take a chilling turn, watching Steve die in any number of terrible ways. Steve strapped to Zola’s table, Bucky powerless to stop it. Steve bleeding out in Bucky’s arms, taking a bullet to the head, the victim of a shell. The worst though is watching Steve die from the scope of his sniper rifle knowing the bullet came from his gun.

 ......

Bucky feels the dark stirrings of something sinister clawing at the pit of his stomach, he wakes from nightmares with foreign words on his tongue and when he takes a piece of shrapnel to the arm he keeps the dressing on for two weeks longer than it actually takes to heal. He doesn’t tell anyone, especially not Steve. Steve still looks at him from across the campfire, slow and deliberate like he wants Bucky to acknowledge him. He looks to him in discussions with the Commandos, a captain in search of his second. But Bucky doesn’t know how to be that anymore. He doesn’t know how to stand by Steve, the cocky voice of reason, cuffing Steve when he says something particularly idiotic. Steve still pauses in his words as if waiting for Bucky to fill in the gaps. He doesn’t know how he can stand to look at Steve. With his reassuring commands and large capable hands, unmarked by war, but probably not for long. They talk briefly, snatches of meaningless conversation about missions and future operations. Steve asks Bucky’s advice on setting up sniper shots and infiltration tactics, even though Bucky knows even less than him. Steve tells him about his transformation, about the super serum. He speaks of it casually, but Bucky sees the gratefulness lurking behind his eyes, the relief that his body will no longer betray him, that he won’t die of pneumonia alone in Brooklyn.

 ......

Bucky’s body has never stopped betraying him. He aches for the gentle reassurance of casual touches, unsaid words imparted with a brush of a hand or a clap on the back that lingers too long. But Bucky knows he should stop wishing for something he shouldn’t have had in the first place.

 ......

Beautiful and enigmatic, Agent Carter is like something out of Bucky’s wildest fantasies or nightmares. She has a sharp tongue and an even sharper wit. She makes Steve blush and rub the back of his neck like he’s not the face on the Allied powers’ posters. They’re talking in hushed voices at the edge of the base, Carter muffling a laugh in the palm of her hand while Steve beams at her. Bucky looks at her and feels grateful, immensely relieved that once this is all over Steve will be able to have everything he ever deserved. Steve doesn’t talk about her, least of all to him, but he takes the gentle ribbing from the other Commandos and stares after Carter long after she’s left a room. Bucky desperately tries to ignore the pang of jealousy and swipes the bottle back from Morita, downing the last of it.

 ......

Steve’s bulky frame makes it hard for Bucky to breathe, he feels guilty for the way his heart aches for the knobby-kneed Brooklyn boy with a chip on his shoulder. Bucky still listens for the rattle in Steve’s breathing because it’s not as if Bucky was ever good for anything other than taking care of him. Seeing Steve now, unburdened by illness, claws at something inside of Bucky.

 ......

“He misses you.” Bucky looks over at Agent Carter as she comes to stand beside him. Her mouth twists as she stares at Steve who is solemnly staring into the fire as the other Commandos pass around some terrible French booze.

“I’m not that man anymore.”

“Neither is he.” She leaves without saying goodbye and Bucky crushes his cigarette under his heel.

 ......

Steve ambushes him one night when he’s coming back from helping Dernier with dinner, too tired to bother sticking around and feigning conversation with the others.

“Buck.” Bucky tries to ignore the way his body relaxes at Steve’s voice or the way his face automatically softens.

“What is it?”

Steve looks taken aback.

“I’m sorry. I wanted–“

Bucky kisses him. He doesn’t plan to do it, it’s a selfish and desperate effort to reconcile this Steve with the man he left behind in Brooklyn. The man who fought too often, got sick every winter and told Bucky his secrets in the quiet of their shared room. But Steve is kissing him back, urgently and with a bruising intensity.

“I fucking missed you.” Steve’s whispers into Bucky’s mouth, smile shy and pleased and Bucky wonders how he could have ever thought Steve had changed.

“I’ve missed you too.” Bucky murmurs.

...... 

Morita is shot at a Hydra base, Bucky taking the man out seconds after Morita goes down. They bring him back to the base in frantic uncoordinated desperation. Steve is carding his hands through his hair; his hands haven't stopped shaking since he lowered his shield. A nurse is screaming at them to leave the medical tent before they’re the ones who end up with stitches. They do, reluctantly, and only once Morita has been given something to numb the pain. None of them feel like sleeping so they stay up piled inside Steve’s tent and send someone to check on Morita every half an hour. Around the time the sun comes up Morita wakes up and even the nurse’s pinched expression softens when they beg to be let in to see him. Morita’s just barely lucid, mumbling something intelligible while the Commandos smile in relief. Steve is off to the side, painstakingly quiet as he stares at Morita sprawled on the cot. His expression is shuttered even as the Commandos try to minimize the magnitude of Morita’s injuries with jokes and promises of a wicked scar to impress the ladies. Steve leaves without anyone noticing, they don’t see him until late that evening and when Falsworth complains about his missing whiskey Steve ducks his head guiltily. Bucky sends him a wry grin.

“You could share next time.” Bucky murmurs lightly, the _you don’t have to do this alone_ goes unsaid.

...... 

Bucky is lying on top of Steve’s chest, soaking up the last few minutes of their time together before he has to exit the tent and join the others. Steve whines in Bucky’s ear, moving so he’s hovering over Bucky.

“Don’t go.” Steve whispers, trailing kisses down Bucky’s chest.

“I have to.” Bucky says and then gasps as Steve palms his cock, stroking him slowly. Bucky makes a little whining sound that makes Steve chuckle lowly.

“You don’t have to go.” Steve whispers before his mouth is hot on Bucky’s, hand unrelenting as he continues to stroke Bucky’s cock.

“You’re right.” Bucky tries to say but it’s swallowed by Steve’s triumphant kiss. Bucky clutches at Steve, sure he’s leaving bruises, hopelessly trying to hold onto this feeling. Bucky hopes that this feeling, of Steve in his arms, happy and pliant, is enough. Enough to keep that ugly desire, which he doesn’t give a name for fear of it swallowing him whole, at bay.

 ......

Bucky doesn’t like to think about Agent Carter and Steve. About her red lips smearing paint on Steve’s mouth or her eliciting the little wanton sounds Steve makes when Bucky fucks him just right. Agent Carter will love Steve, if she doesn’t already. She has a firm grasp on reality and she, at the very least, has her shit together. So when Steve comes back one night with lipstick smudged on his collar and his hair in disarray. Bucky, who has never learned how to control his gaze, stares as Steve ducks into the tent he shares with Dernier. Falsworth wiggles his eyebrows conspiratorially and Bucky goes for a walk to clear his head.

“Smoke?” Bucky takes the offered cigarette from Dum Dum.

“You should talk to him.” Bucky ignores him and tries to mask his surprise by taking another drag.

“They deserve each other.” There’s nothing bitter in Bucky’s words, just desolate resignation.

 ......

Bucky’s grasp is slipping; his fingers are numb, frozen from the weather and the strength of holding himself up. He meets Steve’s gaze and tries to take in every detail of his face. Bucky hopes he remembers Steve in death and feels oddly calm as his fingers slip, sending him tumbling down into the abyss. He can hear Steve’s scream being swallowed up by the wind.

  


End file.
